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Parents speak out after being accused of abusing their baby girl

Parents who were separated from their baby girl after being falsely accused of abusing her are speaking out to raise awareness of the condition that led to her being taken away.

Craig Stillwell and Carla Andrews were distraught when their five-month-old daughter Effie suffered a seizure and was taken to hospital - but that was just the start of their ordeal.

Effie suffered a bleed on the brain after a seizure. Credit: ITV Anglia.

After finding a bleed on the brain, the hospital suspected she had been the victim of domestic abuse and called the police. When they arrived they arrested them and Effie was taken into foster care.

When I got up to go to Effie's bedside they arrested me and said - we're charging you on suspicion of GBH.

They said the hospital suspected Effie's bleed was to do with shaking impact and we were so confused not knowing what they were on about, and then they told us I had to come and answers some questions down the station, and then I went into the room to kiss Effie goodbye.

– Carla Andrews, Effie's mother

Experts later discovered Effie has Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, causing her arteries to rupture.

The council withdrew an application to take Effie into care. Credit: ITV Anglia.

The council withdrew an application to take Effie into care and following a hearing into the case, Carla and Craig asked for the court judgement to be made public, so more people would be aware of the syndrome.

I wanted it open because there was a lot of gossip from people in the street, we'd go into town and they'd say where's your baby gone? You haven't had her for months and I know some people did hear about what had happened.

I just wanted it out in the open that we were found innocent and I don't really want other parents that may have it to go through the same thing.